What are the motifs in A Whole New Life by Reynolds Price?

Becoming a Better Person through Adversity is a recurring idea in the book. Reynolds Price attributes his recovery and his ultimate success, after the dark years of following surgery for a life-threatening disease, in part to his closer relationship with Jesus. In one of the lowest points of his ordeal, Price had a dream—to him it was a vision—in which Jesus tells him that he is forgiven for his sins and that he is cured. The vision meant the world to Price and stayed with him forever. Although he had taken Jesus' word that he was "cured" in the physical sense, many years after recovery and a positive prognosis, he knew that the message had a deeper meaning than just a reference to the recovery of his physical body.